Assessing the Changing Sino–Russian Relationship: A Longitudinal Analysis of Bilateral Cooperation in the Post-Cold War Period

Abstract

The Sino–Russian relationship is of fundamental importance to the global order. Following the question of how this relationship has developed over time—whether it has strengthened, weakened or remained constant—we present a quantitative analysis of its evolution between 1992 and 2019. To this end, the study develops an original index, the Bilateral Cooperation Intensity (BCI) Index, aimed at measuring bilateral (Sino–Russian) cooperation and considering specific (military, economic, political) dimensions. While our findings verify the assumption that China and Russia have indeed strengthened their cooperation in a progressive manner, with no apparent setback following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, the results do not corroborate the claims of dramatic change frequently presented in the literature.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 ‘China and Russia: Partnership of Strategic Coordination’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, available at: https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/ziliao_665539/3602_665543/3604_665547/200011/t20001117_697849.html accessed 16 September 2023.

2 ‘Interview to China’s Leading Media Companies’, President of Russia, 19 May 2014, para. 3, available at: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/21031, accessed 16 September 2023.

3 Similarly, Yu and Sui (2020) argue that the military cooperation between the two states has rapidly increased.

4 Although trade relationships between the two countries are often analysed as a sum of exports and imports, this approach does not consider the actual increase in each country’s total exports, a particularly serious shortcoming given that, for instance, China’s world exports have consistently increased over the years. This approach also does not take into consideration each country’s share in the other’s overall trade. Thus, trade interdependence is a better indicator to account for these shortcomings.

5 The analysis is divided into periods of four years to account for various developments in the Sino–Russian relationship, both in terms of quantity and quality. This allowed us to identify general tendencies over time and account for the influence of major events on the two states’ relationship.

6 ‘Sovmestnaya deklaratsiya ob osnovakh vzaimootnoshenii mezhdu Rossiiskoi Federatsiei i Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respublikoi’, 18 December 1992, available at: https://docs.cntd.ru/document/1900032, accessed 24 September 2023.

7 ‘China, Russia Agree to Upgrade Relations for New Era’, The State Council of the People’s Republic of China, 6 June 2019, available at: https://english.www.gov.cn/news/top_news/2019/06/06/content_281476701425684.htm, accessed 16 September 2023.

8 Existing studies have drawn on a number of databases, including the Conflict and Peace Databank (COPDAB) (Azar 1980), World Event Interaction Survey (WEIS) (McClelland 1978), and Conflict and Mediation Event Observations (CAMEO) (Gerner et al. 2002). International Water Event Database, available at: https://transboundarywaters.science.oregonstate.edu/content/international-water-event-database, accessed 28 September 2023; Social, Political and Economic Event Database Project (SPEED), available at: https://clinecenter.illinois.edu/project/human-loop-event-data-projects/SPEED, accessed 28 September 2023.

9 Measures of power include the Composite Indicator of National Capabilities from the Correlates of War project, the Geometric Indicator of National Capabilities (Kadera & Sorokin 2004), the Soft Power 30 Index and the Global Soft Power Index.

10 See also China–Great Power Relations Score Table, available at: http://www.tuiir.tsinghua.edu.cn/info/1145/2601.htm, accessed 11 September 2023.

11 The data on trade dimensions were also tested using customs statistics from the Ministry of Commerce People’s Republic of China (http://english.mofcom.gov.cn/), the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China (GACC) (http://english.customs.gov.cn/statics/report/trade.html) and the Russian Ministry of Economic Development (http://www.economy.gov.ru) and the Russian government statistics body EMISS (www.fedstat.ru) (even though the respective authorities provide data to the WTO), as well as the UN Comtrade database and WITS database, which was used in this study, although results calculated with raw data may differ slightly depending on the source, the dynamics of trade during the presented period of analysis remain constant/unchanged regardless of the data sources used.

12 Particularly for the arms trade, ‘governments play a much more critical role. Even if manufacturers are private companies, they typically require explicit government permission for every export’ (Pamp et al. 2021, p. 1). This is particularly true for both China and Russia since their respective defence industries are one of the main sources of research and development (Bitzinger & Popescu 2017).

13 ‘SIPRI Arms Transfers Database’, available at: https://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers, accessed 28 September 2023.

14 This contribution focuses on bilateral military exercises and excludes multilateral (including trilateral) military exercises, such as Vostok-18.

15 Chinese People’s Liberation Army, available at: http://eng.chinamil.com.cn/default.htm, accessed 13 September 2023.

16 Global Fire Power, available at: https://www.globalfirepower.com/, accessed 11 September 2023.

17 Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) China Power Project, available at: https://chinapower.csis.org, accessed 12 September 2023.

18 Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, available at: https://eng.mil.ru/en/index.htm, accessed 12 September 2023.

19 ‘Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China’, US Department of Defense reports, 2010–2019, available at: https://www.defense.gov/News/Publications/, accessed 24 October 2023.

20 Ministry of National Defence of the People’s Republic of China, available at: http://eng.mod.gov.cn/, accessed 13 September 2023.

21 This indicator refers to the category ‘fuels’ (oils and products of the distillation, product code 27-27_Fuels) as identified by World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS), available at: https://wits.worldbank.org/, accessed 12 September 2023.

22 Due to the lack of availability of data for the whole period of analysis, the economic dimension indicators do not account for foreign direct investments and trade in natural gas.

23 WITS, available at: https://wits.worldbank.org/, accessed 12 September 2023.

24 World Trade Organization databases, available at: https://stats.wto.org/, accessed 13 September 2023.

25 UN Comtrade database, available at: https://comtrade.un.org/, accessed 12 September 2023.

26 ‘United Nations General Assembly Voting Data’, Erik Voeten Dataverse, available at: https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/LEJUQZ, accessed 12 September 2023.

27 United Nations Digital Library System, available at: https://digitallibrary.un.org/search?cc=Voting+Data&ln=en&c=Voting+Data, accessed 11 September 2023.

28 Official visits include state visits, official working visits, bilateral meetings during summits and working visits, all at the state-leader level.

29 The two states have developed regular—at least once yearly—dialogue mechanisms in all areas of cooperation at all official levels (Guan 2022).

30 For example, Nadkarni (2010).

31 ‘Events’, President of Russia website, available at: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news, accessed 13 September 2023.

32 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, available at: https://www.mid.ru/en/, accessed 12 September 2023; Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Peoples’ Republic of China, available at: https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/, accessed 12 September 2023.

33 China Vitae database, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, available at: https://chinavitae.com/, accessed 12 September 2023.

34 ‘Who. Where. When. International Travel of the PRC Leaders (1949–2020)’, database, Central European Institute of Asian Studies, available at: https://who-where-when.ceias.eu/, accessed 12 September 2023.

35 The findings presented in the Tables and Figures were gained by applying the unity-based normalisation method across the series, which brings the values into a range between zero and one. These values are divided into five scales corresponding to the classification measures used in this study.

36 Data from SIPRI Arms Transfers Database, available at: https://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers, accessed 28 September 2023.

37 The first joint military initiative, which took the form of joint manoeuvres between the two fleets, was documented in 1999. The Russian cruiser Varyag and the destroyer Burny participated in an official visit to the port of Shanghai in connection with the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the formation of the PRC and the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Russia: see, ‘Gvardeiskii raketnyi kreiser proekta 1164 “Varyag”’, Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, available at: https://structure.mil.ru/structure/forces/type/navy/pacific/flagship.htm, accessed 12 September 2023; ‘Wéi zhōngguó wŭshí dàqìng zhù xīng zhōng é hǎijūn jiāng liánhé yǎnxí’, SINA News, 29 September 1999, available at: https://news.sina.com.cn/china/1999-9-29/18562.html, accessed 2 September 2023.

38 Their first joint veto was cast in 2007 over Myanmar. See, ‘Veto List’, UN Security Council Meetings & Outcomes Tables, Dag Hammarskjöld Library, available at: https://research.un.org/en/docs/sc/quick, accessed 9 September 2023.

39 This high intensity of cooperation indicates a significant change in their relationship since the Cold War period when, in 40 years (1949 and 1989), there were only five state visits, which was quite unusual for two neighbouring major powers and for a period allies (Guan 2022).

40 Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, 12 January 2008, available at: http://www.en.kremlin.ru/supplement/4116, accessed 10 September 2023.

41 See Papageorgiou and Vieira (2021a).

42 It is notable that the BCI Index results for 2016–2019 indicate the most significant strengthening of the Sino–Russian relationship, which coincides with a period of crisis in both states’ foreign policy towards the US, such as the Crimea sanctions against Russia, accusations of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections and the US–China trade war.

Additional information

Funding

The study was conducted at Centro de Investigação em Ciência Política, University of Minho and supported by the Research Centre in Political Science (CICP) (UIDB/CPO/00758/2020), the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) and the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science through national funds.

Notes on contributors

Maria Papageorgiou

Maria Papageorgiou, Department of Politics, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom. Email: [email protected]; [email protected]

Alena Vysotskaya Guedes Vieira

Alena Vysotskaya Guedes Vieira, Centro de Investigação em Ciência Política (CICP), University of Minho, Braga, Portugal. Email: [email protected]; [email protected]